“Your team, are they not skilled warriors as you suggest?”
“They’re excellent. And they believe in the old ideologies of the church.”
“Then you should be looking at this with relish instead of caution. A threat to the church looms and walks these hallways with a soul so dark that it blots out the Light within him. I need your team to be the crusaders to stem the flow of approaching Darkness that is Kimball Hayden. You need to stop him and the coming of Eternal Nightfall.”
Jennifer Antle bowed her head. “I am deeply gratified, Your Holiness, of your trust in me,” she said.
“Fail me not, Sister.”
“I won’t.”
Donning her wimple and setting it properly, and though she was not really a nun but addressed as one by the pontiff, the disguise allowed her passage without question from the Swiss Guards.
Standing with her hands clasped together in an attitude of prayer, she bowed her head. “Thank you, Your Holiness. It is a true honor to serve you.”
“Then serve me well, Sister.” After that, he directed his hand to the chamber door, an invite for her to leave.
When he was alone, Pope Clement XV could not hold back the inward grin. He was about to purge his greatest enemy from the ranks of the Vatican. And upon Kimball’s passing, he would lead the Vatican Knights as their sole commander who would neither be contested nor questioned by the unit. For his word, he knew, would be accepted as gospel, once Kimball was no longer their sitting king.
CHAPTER
SIX
Paris, France
Later That Evening
The moon was in its gibbous phase and waxing towards its full stage when a dark sedan pulled onto a winding dirt road. The trees lining both sides were so heavy that the overhead canopy of intertwining limbs impeded any possible breach of lunar beams, the pathway now ominously dark.
When the sedan approached the house at the top of the hill, it appeared disheveled and unkempt. Tiles from the roof were missing to give it a mottled look. Several window shutters hung drunkenly to one side; the hinges having rusted long ago. And the gray castle-stone walls of the house were covered with wild and unruly vines.
When Ahmed Jaziri got out of the car to look at the home, he wondered if he had the right address. When he asked his driver if he had the right location, his chauffer confirmed that the coordinates listed in the GPS were the same as the address given to him by the Bangladeshi. But all questions were answered when the Bangladeshi greeted him from the shadows, the man appearing silhouetted against the backdrop of the house.
“Ahmed,” he said. “As promised, not a second too soon or too late.”
The man known as the Financier pointed to the house. “Are you that financially hopeless?”
“I chose the property because it was out of sight and mind. I’m alone here without prying eyes.”
“A safehouse,” said Jaziri.
“For the moment. The item we’ve spoken about is nearby. So, Ahmed, tell me, are you ready to look inside the crypt of the Unholy Trinity?”
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to see such treasures. I’ve heard that Abesh Faruk was in possession of such items, but it was never confirmed.”
After Ahmed Jaziri informed his driver to stand by, the Bangladeshi escorted him along the driveway and inside the tumble-down estate. When they entered, the home had a bitter and overpowering stench to it, that of mold and mildew. Old furniture had graced the rooms with most either torn or broken. And the windows had either been boarded over, or the panes were being held together with strands of duct tape.
Moving from the front of the home to the rear, a back door led into a courtyard whose landscape had been conquered long ago by tall weeds and wild creepers. Sitting idle in the undergrowth was a truck. And to the left of the truck was an old pulley-and-chain system that had been welded together from rusted hoist poles, though the structure appeared strong enough to lift and move heavy objects.
As they waded through the unkempt thicket, they came to the shed whose handles were tied together by rusty links of chain. After the Bangladeshi removed the lock, he parted the doors and flipped on the light switch.
Ahmed Jaziri sucked in a breath of air, a sharp intake. He was amazed and enthralled by the sight of the Goliath Chamber, which was made up of stone that illustrated the bas-relief carvings of demons and creatures of ancient lore.
Walking to the sarcophagus-looking container, he placed his hands against the face of a carving, a devil. The stone was cold to the touch.
“We must open it,” said Jaziri. “And we must do so quickly.” He turned to the Bangladeshi. “But tell me, will we be safe once we push the lid aside?”
“I believe so.”
“But you don’t know for sure?”
“What’s inside has been locked away for a long time. In order to know, we must see for ourselves.”
Jaziri balked at this for a brief moment until his enthusiasm became too great to control. And then: “I’ll grab one end and you the other, and then we’ll slide the lid aside.”
The Bangladeshi placed the palms of his hands along the edges of the lid at one end, with Ahmed Jaziri doing the same on the other.
“On the count of three,” said the Bangladeshi. “One . . . Two . . . Three.”
Both men started to push their weight against the stone cap, the two grimacing and straining as the cords along their necks stood out with their efforts.
The cap started to move and slide away with stone grating against stone. There was a sliver of an opening, but the darkness within remained absolute and impenetrable. The two continued to push and heave and throw their weight behind their exertions with the laws of physics working in their
